


Thaw

by watanuki_sama



Series: Steeped In Sin [14]
Category: Common Law (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Aftereffects of Abuse, Amy POV, Demon!Wes AU, M/M, PTSD, Past Domestic Abuse, Prejudice against demons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 10:12:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16015760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watanuki_sama/pseuds/watanuki_sama
Summary: In the beginning, Amy didn’t like Travis all that much, but she really hated Wes. Now…well, she still doesn’t like Wes, but he’s starting to grow on her.





	Thaw

**Author's Note:**

> Have I mentioned how much I love outsider POV in this verse? Because I really, really do.
> 
>  
> 
> Also posted on FF.net under the penname 'EFAW' on 9.16.18.

_“Some people you don’t need a reason to hate. Sometimes their existence is reason enough.”_   
_—Anonymous_

\---

The captain calls Travis into his office, which, frankly, isn’t that unusual. Travis is always getting called into the office and berated for some reckless stunt he pulled. He’s a loose cannon, Travis Marks is, and it’s a rare week when he _doesn’t_ end up in Sutton’s office. Amy doesn’t give it a second thought when Travis troops past her.

Then the captain quietly shuts the door.

_That_ makes heads all around the squad room pop up like meerkats. Ever since Cap went through his whole therapy thing, he’s been big on open doors and fostering communication. “A closed door is a door between hearts,” he likes to say, so his door stays open at all times. Since he’s no longer yelling at people when they do something stupid, not even Travis, no one really minds.

This—well, this is very strange. It’s been months since the captain’s door has been shut.

Kate leans over, eyes fixed on the door, and murmurs, “What do you think is going on?” Around the room, a low buzz of supposition starts, everyone wondering the same thing.

Amy shrugs, twirling her pen. “I think a better question is, what has Marks done _this_ time? Must be really bad if the cap has to ream him out behind closed doors.”

Her partner shoots her an amused look. “Travis doesn’t _only_ get in trouble. It might be something else.”

Amy scoffs disbelievingly and rolls her eyes. “Uh-huh. Right.” She sits up. “Ooh, maybe he finally found someone stupid enough to want to be his partner.”

“You know,” Kate says, in a quietly-amused tone, “Travis really isn’t as bad as you think.” She says this the same way she always does when this argument comes up.

And, as she always does, Amy responds by lifting her eyebrows disbelievingly and drawling, “I’m sure.”

It’s not like Amy hates Travis or anything. He’s a decent cop, when he puts his mind to it, and he has a steady arrest record. Nothing truly outstanding, but he’s been working on his own for a long time now, and there’s only so much he can do by himself.

But Travis Marks is—well, like said, he’s a loose cannon. He’s always pulling some random stunt, like jumping off fire escapes or running into traffic after a suspect, and it’s amazing he’s not dead yet. It’s probably a good thing he works alone, because any partner who got dragged after him would have to be invincible to make it a week without damage. 

Plus, Travis is a shameless womanizer (and, if the scuttlebutt is true, not _just_ a womanizer, either). He’s constantly flirting with anybody and everybody, and the first time he met Amy, before even asking her name, he’d hit on her. Amy has dealt with too many men in her life who see a pretty face and think they can take what they want. Travis has always kept his hands to himself, but still.

Amy doesn’t _hate_ Travis, per say, but she certainly doesn’t like him very much.

The captain’s door opens, and the chatter stops, everyone watching Travis step out. He looks around the room, a cocky, amused smirk on his face, and saunters back to his desk without a word. He doesn’t _look_ like a man who just got in serious trouble with the captain. As soon as he’s seated, the chatter resumes, hurried conversations gossiping and speculating on what happened in the captain’s office.

“Seriously, what do you think happened?” Kate muses, eyeing the back of Travis’s head.

Amy can’t help casting a tiny glance his way. Travis is staring down at his desk, frowning pensively at the paperwork in front of him without really seeming to see it at all.

“I don’t know,” she says dismissively, turning back to her own work. “But I’m sure the captain will let us know sooner or later. Probably in a memo.”

He’s been big on memos lately.

\---

The captain does not send out a memo. The captain calls a meeting. They all fall silent as he walks in, Travis trailing on his heels. This is it, Amy realizes in a flash, this is what that closed-door meeting was about, this is why Travis has been so quiet and unusually subdued the past few days. They’re finally going to find out what it is.

The captain stops at the front of the room and clears his throat. He’s not a very tall man, not very large, but he has a robust presence. He’s tempered quite a bit since he got through therapy, but he can still draw every eye in a room.

“Detectives,” he says solemnly, which is kind of an unnerving way to start a conversation. Amy braces herself for whatever blow he’s about to land.

“Detectives,” the captain repeats, “we’re getting new personnel, who will be working with Detective Marks.” 

That. Was not what Amy was expecting. Judging by the puzzled looks on her colleagues’ faces, it wasn’t what they were expecting either.

“So?” Dietz asks across the room, and Amy understands. This really isn’t the kind of situation the captain normally calls a meeting about.

The captain continues like he hasn’t heard. “His name is Wes Mitchell. He’s a former lawyer. I’m sure you all know Sterner & Whitehall.”

There’s a couple of muttered grumbles throughout the room. Everyone has gone up against the lawyers from Sterner & Whitehall at least once, men and women who have a reputation for being utterly ruthless, cutting a person apart one word at a time.

It’s also a firm that, rumor has it, has a majority of demons working on their payroll.

Amy starts to get a bad feeling.

“So?” Dietz asks again—he’s never been extremely quick on the uptake, never one to jump to a theory with only a thread of evidence to lead him there. “We know how to deal with lawyers, Cap. Sorry, _former_ lawyer.”

There are a few awkward titters, but all around the room, a handful of people are shifting in their seats, looking pinched. They’ve had the same realization Amy has.

Captain Sutton takes a slow breath, sweeping his gaze around the room, meeting each person’s gaze. Travis is standing behind the captain, staring into the middle distance and not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“Wes Mitchell,” the captain says slowly, “is a demon.”

No pun intended, all hell breaks loose.

\---

“What is he _thinking?”_ Amy demands, pacing the length of her living room. “A _demon?_ We can’t have a _demon_ on the force!”

“The cap says he passed all the tests,” Kate says, tracking her movements. “He doesn’t seem worried.”

“It’s a _demon_ , Kate. He should be worried!” Amy whirls, pacing back the other way. “When has a demon ever done anyone any good? This guy is _literally_ from Hell. Didn’t you go to Sunday school? All they do is destroy things.”

“We can trust the captain,” Kate says, though she doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

“Normally I’d agree with you, but not on _this_. A _demon!_ This is going to _ruin us!”_ Her throat feels tight, heart racing too fast; she runs her hands through her hair and tries to calm down. The nice, deep breaths she was aiming for come out a bit too close to hyperventilation for her comfort.

“Hey,” Kate coos, reaching out and grabbing Amy’s wrist as she makes another pass. She keeps her grip loose, tugs gently, but it’s enough to make panic rise up, choking her, blinding her, and for a second she’s not in her safe living room with her partner, she’s not an accomplished police officer who can protect herself—for a second, she’s a scared girl over her head in a situation she can’t escape.

“Don’t—!” She jerks her hand free, voice too high, too shrill. She hunches her shoulders and backs away, eyes darting for an exit, for any way out—

“Amy.” The voice is soft, stern without being demanding. Amy blinks, focuses on—on _Kate_ , sitting on her couch, face calm and slightly worried.

“Amy,” she says again, “you’re okay. It’s okay.”

She’s trembling, she realizes, tiny shakes through her whole body. She forces her shoulders to relax, her hands to unclench. “Sorry,” she whimpers, throat too tight. “Sorry, I—”

“Don’t be,” Kate says, lips smiling even if her eyes don’t. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have grabbed you when you were so wound up. _I’m_ sorry.”

Kate shouldn’t be sorry. It isn’t _her_ fault Amy still has scars under her skin that still haven’t quite healed. 

Every time she thinks she’s made enough progress, every time she thinks she’s okay, something sets her back.

_A demon_. God…

“Hey,” Kate calls, drawing her attention once more. The blonde holds out her hand, an invitation, not a demand, face a portrait of patience. Kate would sit there all day, waiting for her.

Amy hesitates only a moment before sliding her hand into her partner’s, allowing herself to be pulled onto the couch. Shamelessly, she burrows into Kate’s side, relishing the reassuring arm Kate wraps around her shoulders.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Kate offers after a while.

Amy snorts. “It’s going to be a fucking disaster.”

\---

Amy doesn’t have any personal experience with demons, not really. Nothing like the stories in the paper, families slaughtered by out of control demons, chaos and disaster dragged in the wake of demons looking for a good time. She has faced a few in the courtroom, sharp and ruthless and ready to sink their teeth in any weakness—not unlike any other lawyer, really.

But she knows people, cruel, heartless people who take and take and leave ruin in their wake. People who destroy everything they touch, who think they have all the power in the world at their fingertips and don’t hesitate to use it against those weaker than them.

She knows people so similar to everything a demon is supposed to be, and she knows the awful scars they leave.

The thought of working with an _actual_ demon makes her stomach twist in more ways than one.

\---

But it’s fine. She’ll just keep her distance and avoid the demon in the squad room. She can handle that.

There are two problems with that plan.

The first is that she doesn’t know what the demon looks like. The captain gave them a name but not a picture, and no definitive date of arrival, so she has no idea what Wes Mitchell looks like.

The second is that she forgets a very important fact: demons have been around for a long time, longer than anyone knew before they revealed themselves. Demons can be big and scary and terrifying, but they can also slip unnoticed in the back of crowds if they’re playing a part.

Besides, Wes Mitchell doesn’t look like a demon, not Amy’s mental picture of a demon, which is why she steps into an elevator with him and doesn’t realize her mistake until after he’s introduced himself.

He looks—frankly, he looks more like an accountant than a big bad scary lawyer, even with the suit, and he’s giving off a completely new-person vibe, sort of hesitantly uncertain, and she’d had no _idea_ a demon could ever act so…so _human_ , but that name has been engraved in her mind since the captain said it, and Wes Mitchell is a _demon_.

She’s trapped in an elevator with a demon.

Her heart pounds, throat goes tight, and she stares at his outstretched hand like it’s going to bite her. Trapped in a box with a _demon_ , oh god, and despite everything she’s learned, everything she’s taught herself, she freezes.

Amy can fight a lot of things, but there’s nothing she can do against a demon.

The demon makes a small sound and pulls his hand back, standing as unthreateningly as possible with his hands around his box of personal things. (Demons have personal things?) It doesn’t make Amy feel any less threatened, and she does her very best not to cower in the corner of the elevator.

As soon as the doors open, she rushes into the hall. She listens for footsteps following her, but doesn’t hear anything. She can’t tell if that’s because the demon isn’t actually following her, or if her heart is just beating too loudly for her to hear.

“He’s here,” she hisses to Kate, dumping her bag on her chair. She presses her hands flat on the top of her desk, trying to get them to stop shaking, trying to slow her breathing. She is a strong, accomplished detective. She is _fine_.

“Who’s here?” Kate asks, and then the door to the squad room opens and the entire room goes silent. It’s eerie—homicide detectives are never silent, not like this, tense and on the edge like they’re about to draw their weapons any second.

Amy is the only one who doesn’t look at the newcomer in the doorway, and as the demon’s slow regard passes over the room, she feels a shiver run down her spine.

\---

The first time Amy’s boyfriend hit her, she was so stunned she couldn’t react. She stood there with her hand on her cheek as he cried and apologized and said he would never do it again. She believed him.

The fifth time her boyfriend hit her, she’d stopped believing it was an accident. But she was young and in love, and that made her stupid. She believed she was The One for him, that she would be able to fix him. That somehow, through the power of her feelings, she would be able to _save_ him and they would all live happily ever after. She’d read all the fairy tales as a child—love was the most powerful thing in the universe.

The ninth, the fourteenth, the twentieth time he hit her… After a while, she lost count. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to save him—she couldn’t even save herself.

The most important lesson she learned was that sometimes, the worst monsters looked completely normal.

\---

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Kate offers, peering through the blinds. Wes and Travis are bent over Travis’s desk, the human catching the demon up on their current caseload. Everyone is pretending to go about their business, but there are too many unsubtle glances at the pair in the center of the room.

Amy is _not_ hiding in the break room. She’s just getting another cup of coffee. Her sixth one. She likes coffee.

“It’s going to be a fucking disaster,” Amy mutters, dumping sugar into her mug.

“I’m trying to be optimistic here,” Kate says, which makes one of them. She peeks through the blinds again, not even trying to be subtle about it. Then again, no one else is, either.

“Travis is going to be dead in a week,” Amy tells her partner.

“Amy!” Kate admonishes, dropping the blinds to stare at her. 

“Like you really think any different,” Amy scoffs.

Kate opens her mouth, clearly searching for words, and just as clearly unable to come up with any.

“Yeah.” Amy picks up her mug, tries to draw in the warmth. “That’s what I thought.”

Like said. It’s going to be a fucking disaster.

\---

Travis is reckless. He’s been that way since day one, always rushing into situations on a hunch, too impatient to wait a few extra seconds to gather all the facts, too independent to wait for backup no matter how outgunned he is. 

And that recklessness carries over to the people around him; he’s careful about not letting civilian casualties pile in his wake, but he isn’t always so careful about the people at his back. It’s why he has such a hard time keeping a partner—people don’t want to work with someone who is as careless with their lives as he is with his own.

Amy doesn’t know what the captain was thinking. Combining Travis’s careless recklessness with a demon’s casual disregard for human life is only going to end with Travis dead sooner rather than later. 

Amy may have been the only one willing to say it aloud, but she has no doubt the rest of the squad is thinking the same thing. It’s just a matter of time.

But Travis defies expectations. He makes it a week, then another, and another. After a month, Amy starts to wonder if maybe the captain had been onto something after all. Not only has Travis not died yet, but he also hasn’t been in the hospital for anything more serious than a few minor scrapes and a tetanus shot. That’s frankly unheard of.

“I wonder what’s changed,” she muses idly, staring at the pair across the room.

“Well, if you believe Travis’s chatter, Wes is basically a giant, black-eyed, overprotective mother hen,” Kate offers.

Amy snorts indelicately. “Yeah right.”

“Hey, stranger things have happened.”

“There is no way a demon is babysitting the reckless idiot of the department. He’s probably just waiting for the right moment to snap and slaughter us all.”

“That’s cynical.”

“That’s realistic.” Amy points her pen at her partner. “Who ever heard of a policeman demon? There’s got to be some ulterior motive here.”

Kate shakes her head, muttering something under her breath Amy can’t quite catch. It probably wasn’t nice anyway.

As she bends back over her paperwork, she feels a tingle on the back of her neck, the creeping sensation that someone is watching her. When she glances up, her eyes meet Wes Mitchell’s.

The demon stares at her from across the room, expression completely flat. His eyes are a clear, _human_ blue—maybe it’s just her imagination that she thinks she sees something dark and malevolent behind his stare.

She feels a shiver run down her spine, and she’s the one who looks away first.

\---

If Travis is the reckless one in the department, then Amy is the cold, cynical one. She doesn’t smile enough, doesn’t socialize enough, always suspects the worst in people. The only people she ever really relaxes around are Kate and the captain, and even then, it’s only to a certain degree.

Amy has her reasons, reasons she doesn’t share with anyone.

_Before,_ when she was naive and trusted too much, she ended up in an abusive relationship she barely escaped from. She’s still not completely over it. The last thing she wants to do is ever be that vulnerable again.

If protecting herself means she comes off as cold and unfeeling, then she’s willing to live with that.

Better that than to be gullible and naïve and _stupid_ only to get hurt again.

\---

She trusts the captain, and she trusts the captain’s judgement. Most of the time.

But ever since he’s gone through therapy, he’s been trying new things and willing to give people a lot more slack. He thinks every in the world should be as happy and peaceful as he is, and he’s willing to give pretty much everyone the benefit of the doubt. Amy doesn’t know if that’s optimism or hope or something else, but it let a demon into their midst.

Amy trusts the captain’s judgement, most of the time, but she can’t trust it on this one.

She just can’t relax her guard around Wes. She can’t afford to.

\---

“I’ve figured it out.”

Amy shrieks, dumping her coffee across the counter. She’s already spun around and has her gun halfway out the holster before she recognizes the person standing there. She debates shooting him, just for the hell of it, then reluctantly holsters her gun once more—no use wasting perfectly good bullets.

“Jesus Christ, Mitchell,” she scowls, grabbing a wad of paper towels to wipe up her coffee. Her heart is still pounding. “What the _fuck?”_

Utterly unperturbed, the demon blinks, studying her. She tries to ignore the creeping, oily sensation of his gaze. “I’ve figured it,” he says again. “Why you don’t like me.”

“Because you’re a sociopath who lurks in dark corners to scare women?”

“I wasn’t lurking,” the demon says, tiling his head and blinking again. She wonders if it’s a conscious decision on his part not to flash black eyes, if he’s deliberately keeping them blue to avoid putting her more on edge than she already is. If that is what he’s doing, it’s not working; she’s plenty freaked out just being in the small break room alone with him.

“Uh-huh.” She dumps the sodden paper towels in the trash and reaches for her mug again. Her hands are trembling—she tells herself it’s anger, not fear.

He’s still standing there when she finishes refilling her mug, hands behind his back, looking like he could happily linger all day. She wants to get out of here, but he’s right between her and the door, and she doesn’t want to have to brush by him to escape.

So she leans against the counter instead, clutching her mug to hide the shaking in her hands. “Okay, I’ll play,” she says in her most nonchalant voice. “Why don’t I like you?”

The corners of his mouth turn up, small and sharp. It’s a cold, merciless smile that sends a shiver down her spine. “You don’t like me,” he purrs, voice just as oily as his gaze, “because you don’t want to admit how alike we are.”

He takes a small step forward, and all of a sudden the room is too close, too confined. Her fingers clench her mug so hard she’s afraid the porcelain will shatter. “I’m _nothing_ like you!” she all but shouts, and this time it is anger filling her voice, hot and potent. That this—this _thing_ , this _monster_ would say she’s _anything_ like him is—is—

The demon takes another step toward her, that awful smile stretching across his face. “You keep telling yourself that, detective.”

He reaches out. Amy flinches. She can’t help it, it’s completely instinctual. His hand pauses, inches from her shoulder, a fleeting moment so quick she wouldn’t notice if he weren’t so close. Then he reaches further, beyond her, before pulling back…with a can of creamer in his hand.

“I don’t lurk,” he says, turning toward the door. Amy has a wild fantasy of pulling out her gun and emptying it into his exposed back. It wouldn’t do anything, would only get her in trouble, but it would be damn satisfying.

Then he’s gone, the door sliding quietly shut behind him, and Amy slumps against the counter, with nothing but her racing heart and ragged breathing for company.

\---

“I hate him. I hate him, I hate him, I _hate_ him.”

“Because he scared you?” Kate asks, one eyebrow going up. “Ames, he’s a demon. He probably gets a perverse pleasure out of scaring _anyone_.”

“But why does he always come after _me?”_

Kate shrugs. “Because you’re the one who reacts. No doubt he just gets a kick out of pushing your buttons—it’s more entertaining than someone else.”

Amy glowers. “That’s kindergarten psychology.”

“Yeah, well, some men and demons never grow past the kindergarten stage.”

Amy stabs her chow mein with her chopsticks. “Anyway, that’s not why. I hate him because he’s _awful_. He shouldn’t _be_ here. He’s a monster.”

Kate frowns. “I don’t know. I mean, yes, yes, he’s a monster,” she relents, throwing her hands up to ward off Amy’s glare. “But, I hate to admit it, he’s a pretty decent cop.”

“You’re _defending_ him?” Amy demands, slamming her takeout box on the table.

“I’m stating a fact. Mitchell does the job. Yes, he can be a bit… _overzealous_ at times, but, strange as this is to say, Travis actually has a way of managing that down to something reasonable. And we’ve all noticed how much better Travis is doing, which I have no doubt is entirely due to the fact that Mitchell can take bullets without flinching.”

Amy gapes at her partner in betrayed horror. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You’re on _his_ side?”

“I’m on your side,” Kate says instantly. “I’m always on your side. But I think you’re deliberately blinding yourself to the fact that it’s been months, and Mitchell has done nothing but be a cop.”

“If you let him under your guard, he’ll take advantage and rip you to shreds. Maybe not just figuratively, either.”

Kate sighs, shaking her head. “I give up. You’re never gonna change your mind.”

“Nope,” Amy agrees, picking up her food once more. “One of us needs to keep a clear head and not let his demonic wiles get the better of us. And since he’s already gotten to you, I guess that’s gotta me be.”

Kate snorts. “Wiles? Really?”

Amy ignores her partner and continues cheerfully. “And if he so much as thinks of touching me, I’m going to empty a full clip into his face.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard to avoid that,” Kate says, reaching for the dumplings. “Just stay out of each other’s way at the precinct. After all, it’s not like you’ll be working with him.”

Well, that’s true.

\---

“I hate you.” 

“What?” Sounding affronted, Kate hobbles after her, crutches thumping dully on the linoleum floor. “What did I do?”

“You made this happen,” Amy grumbles, stomping to her desk. “This is all your fault.”

“It’s not like I sprained my ankle the same week Travis dislocated his shoulder on _purpose_ ,” Kate says, easing herself into her chair. Her injured leg sticks out awkwardly into the aisle; if Amy were a pettier, meaner person, she’d kick it.

“You didn’t have to,” she mutters, grabbing her gun from her desk drawer. “You said it. ‘It’s not like you’ll be working with him, Amy’,” she mimicks in a high falsetto that sounds nothing like her partner. “And now look what happened.”

Kate sighs, trying to find an unobtrusive spot to prop her crutches. “The universe is _not_ out to get you, Ames.”

“The universe is out to get _everyone_ ,” Amy retorts darkly. “Sometimes it’s just more subtle. This? This is not subtle.”

“Still not seeing how this is my fault.”

“Because you _jinxed it!”_ Amy jabs her finger at her partner. “You tempted fate, and I have to work with—” Her eyes cut across the room. “— _him_.”

Travis, one arm tucked in a sling, is gesticulating wildly with his good hand, while Mitchell is nodding seriously and conveying every appearance of listening intently. He doesn’t so much as glance her way; she still imagines she can see him smirking her direction. He’s probably _enjoying_ this up-close chance to torment her, the perverse monster.

“Ames,” Kate sighs, “you’re gonna be fine.”

“Oh my god, you did it again!” Amy whirls around the glare at her partner. “If I die out there, I am coming back and haunting you _forever_.”

Kate just smiles. “Play nice.”

\---

Amy had offered to drive. Mitchell had shot that down without breaking stride, which is how Amy finds herself in the passenger seat of Mitchell’s shiny black Chrysler, pressed as close to the door as she can get without diving out.

Mitchell is surprisingly conscientious of road rules. Somehow, Amy had expected something more along the lines of _Fast and Furious_ , but he stops at every red light and never goes above the speed limit. It should make her feel a little more at ease. It doesn’t.

There’s something about being out of control, about being in a _demon’s_ control, that makes her unaccountably nervous. Even if that ‘control’ is something as simple as driving.

She can’t wait for Kate’s ankle to heal. Or Travis’s shoulder, whichever comes first. She’d be more than happy to spend a week catching up on paperwork if Travis took his demon off her hands.

A few minutes into the drive, Wes pulls into a turn lane and conversationally asks, “Have you figured out why you don’t like me?”

“You’re a demon,” Amy snaps instantly, scowling out the window. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

“I haven’t done anything to you.”

“ _Yet_.”

Wes smoothly completes the turn. “You don’t trust me.”

That answer is so obvious Amy doesn’t even bother replying. After a moment, Wes makes a face, a sort of _Yeah, okay, that was too obvious, that was a dumb thing to point out_ look.

The demon frowns slightly, tapping the steering wheel with his thumb. “You don’t trust the captain? His judgment?”

“Not on this.” Taking a deep breath, fortifying herself, Amy turns her glare onto him. “Not about you.”

Ever so briefly, his eyes flick towards her, blue and cold as ice, before returning to the road. “You’re afraid.”

Afraid? Yes, but she’s never going to admit it to _him_.

“No I’m not.”

Wes just sighs, and his eyes flicker black, so quickly she would have missed it if she’d blinked. “Do humans really not understand how…how _ineffective_ it is to lie to a demon? I mean, there’s _no point_.”

His tone is congenial, light, almost bantering; Amy refuses to engage. She glowers out the window and swallows around the lump in her throat, swallows down the sudden, irrational flash of terror that swarmed up in her at that flicker of black eyes.

No, she corrects herself, not irrational. She’s heard the stories, she’s seen the end results of demons’ work at crime scenes. She knows exactly what Wes Mitchell is capable of, and he may be holding back now but there’s every chance he’ll snap one day and give in to every urge he’s been suppressing.

She has every right to be afraid.

Mitchell lets out a soft, slow breath, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “I’m not going to do anything to you.”

“You can say that as many times as you want, I still won’t believe it.”

He laughs, a tiny little huff of breath, and Amy turns her glare to him. “What?”

“Nothing. You just remind me of someone, is all.”

Her eyes narrow. “Who?”

Mitchell’s eyes flick up toward the rearview mirror, and he smoothly changes lanes. “I wonder.”

“Oh, is this more of that bullshit about how we’re more alike than I realize? Will you stop it already? Whatever mind games you’re playing with Travis, I’m not falling for it.”

It’s a mistake to bring Travis into this, she realizes instantly. Mitchell’s body goes tense, and the car is so suddenly filled with unrestrained, unparalleled anger and violence that it takes her breath away. Amy cringes against the door, and sheer, animal panic has her scrabbling for the handle, anything to get her away, that might give her one more moment to live.

Then Mitchell lets out a breath, another, a third. Slowly, ever so slowly, the palpable sensation of danger fades, leaving only the awful, lingering taste of fear in her throat.

Mitchell eases the car into a parking spot before their destination, and he says, calmly and cheerily, “We’re here.” But the anger is still simmering, tightening his jaw, and he slams the door a little too hard when he climbs out.

It takes her almost five minutes to quiet her jack-rabbiting heart and convince herself that following him is a good idea.

\---

She is afraid of Wes, but not for the reasons he thinks. Not for what he can do.

It’s because of what he _represents_. He is chaos unfounded, wild and roaming the streets of Los Angeles with a wrecking ball at his side. He’s all the carefully constructed order in her little world turned upside down, and as fast as she tries to scrabble to put everything back together, things just keep falling apart more and more whenever she’s around him.

Amy has been out of control before—she she’s vowed to never be in that position again.

And then Wes fucking Mitchell introduced himself in that elevator and Amy feels like maybe she never had any control in the first place.

\---

So. This is how she dies. In a vacant lot that’s probably full of needles and used condoms and piss. If she weren’t dying, she’d be worried about how recently she’d gotten her last tetanus shot.

Damn, her life sucks.

At least the sky is nice, she thinks muzzily. It’s a perfect Los Angeles day, all clear blue skies with puffy white clouds floating lazily along. That part could be worse, she supposes.

And then her view of the perfect blue sky is marred when a person leans over her, casting his face in shadows.

No, wait, that’s his eyes, a nauseating swirl of darkness that reminds her all too clearly _why_ she’s lying in a vacant lot dying.

_I am so haunting your ass forever, Kate,_ she thinks, closing her eyes. She doesn’t want to look at _him_. Not right now.

Not while she’s dying.

“Detective,” he says, because he just can’t leave well enough alone, can he? “You’ve been shot.”

She knows that. She can feel the terrible pain in her leg, radiating up her spine until there’s nothing but lightning along her nerves with every breath. She can feel the slow ebb of blood from her leg, coalescing into a sticky puddle along her thigh and butt, pooling in the small of her back. She _knows_ she’s been shot.

But there’s nothing she can do about it, and she knows Mitchell won’t do a damn thing, so she’s trying to focus on something else. _Anything_ else.

Quite a task, what with the agony, but she likes a challenge.

“I called for help,” Mitchell says, his perfectly calm voice cutting irritatingly through her brain. “But the bullet nicked your femoral vein. If I don’t do something, you’re going to bleed out before the ambulance gets here.”

Anger rises, giving her enough energy to open her eyes and glare at him, the most venomous, hate-filled glare she can muster. “Fuck _you_ ,” she hisses through gritted teeth, and wishes she could accompany it by flipping him the bird, too. Wouldn’t that be a way to go.

She’s not going to make a goddamn deal with a fucking _demon_ because of a measly bullet. She lost herself a long time ago, and it took her forever to find herself again. She’s never doing that again.

Mitchell sighs, looking nothing more than mildly annoyed. “Detective,” he says patronizingly, like she’s a recalcitrant child, “I don’t want to make a deal with you. I can stop the bleeding, but you’ll have to let me touch you.”

That makes the anger stutter, and she blinks at him. “What?” _Let her?_ He’s a goddamn _demon_ , he doesn’t need to _let_ her do anything. He just takes and takes and does whatever the hell he wants, that’s what demons _do_. That’s what _monsters_ do. 

He just stares at her with oil-slick eyes and doesn’t move an inch toward her. “Detective Amy Laroche,” he says solemnly, “I can save your life, but I’m going to have to touch you.”

It’s funny how the mind works, how clarity can come in the direst of situations. Like a bolt of lightning, she understands what he’s asking, what he’s _offering_. It takes her breath away (though that might be the pain of _the fucking bullet wound in her leg_ ).

“I want,” she gasps, “to _live_.” She has so much to do, so many plans, she doesn’t want to die now, in an empty lot far away from everyone she cares about. She wants to keep going for so many years. “ _Yes_.”

He nods once, decisive, unbuckling his belt as he kneels beside her. He’s never going to get the blood out of the knees of his suit; he just goes to work, his face a mask of concentration.

His eyes are still pitch black. For the very first time, Amy doesn’t find that completely unsettling.

Mitchell wraps the belt around her thigh, just enough for her to feel the pressure on her skin. “Alright,” he says, “this is going to hurt.”

Before she even has a chance to catch her breath, he yanks the tourniquet tight, and there is the briefest, blinding moment of white-hot agony, and then nothing at all.

\---

It took time, two friends, and a professor who’d been through the same thing for Amy to finally break free of her college boyfriend and the abuse he gave her, masquerading as love. It took even longer for her to understand that it wasn’t her fault, that she didn’t deserve anything that happened to her.

Some days, that fact is less of a certainty than a desperate mantra she repeats to herself, over and over, just to get through the day.

She was young and trapped; she has no doubt that if she hadn’t had help, hadn’t had people doing their best to pull her out of an untenable situation, she never would have gotten free. Some days that still feels like a failure. _Some_ how, _some_ way she ought to have been able to make it out on her own.

She thought she’d grown stronger since then, that she’d learned how to take care of herself. That she _can_ save herself, no matter what comes her way, and she’ll never be so vulnerable and helpless ever again.

The hardest thing to face is the fact that no matter how strong she is, sometimes she still can’t save herself. 

\---

She wakes to soft white lights, a nurse checking her vitals, and tears streaming down Kate’s fate in relief. For the next three days, she gets a steady stream of visitors; Kate mostly handles them, while Amy slips in and out of a pleasant, morphine-induced daze.

Wes Mitchell is not one of her visitors.

“I tried to get him to come with me,” Travis explains, setting a stuffed rabbit from the gift shop on her bedside table. “But he was adamant about not coming in. You guys think I’m stubborn? Try getting a millennia-old demon to do something he doesn’t want to do, then you will learn about stubborn.”

“Is he really a thousand years old?” Kate asks?

“Fuck if I know, Wes doesn’t tell me a damn thing about his past. But you gotta admit, millennia-old rolls right off the tongue and he hasn’t corrected me yet.”

“The bunny is pink,” Amy says.

“Yes,” Travis says, voice going gentle and soft as he turns to her. “Yes it is.” He checks the machine by the bed and, in a stage-whisper, says, “You’re on the good stuff. Ride this high while you can.”

She blinks slowly at him. The morphine is nice, it makes her leg stop hurting, but sometimes it makes it hard to think coherently too. She’s not fond of that. “Where’s Mitchell?”

“He’s not here.” Travis smiles at her. “But he wishes you well.”

Amy blinks again, processing. “No he doesn’t,” she finally says.

“Well…no.” Travis makes a wiggling motion with his hand. “He actually started talking about the kinds of infections people could get from gunshot wounds in the 1800s, which is _super gross_ by the way, but it’s tangentially relevant so it’s practically concern and well-wishes.”

Amy thinks about this. It seems to take a while. She’s always thought Travis talked too much; the drugs have only solidified this belief. “Why did he save me?” she finally asks.

Travis smiles at her, radiating puzzlement. “Why? Because you were injured. That’s what anyone would do.”

_No,_ she thinks, _that’s what YOU would do. Not him. Not a demon._ But the words get lost somewhere between her brain and her mouth, and then she gets distracted by the pink rabbit.

She vaguely notices Kate ushering Travis out, and then a couple of nurses come and go, and then it’s just her and Kate once more.

She looks over at her partner, frowning. “Why did he save me?”

And she doesn’t know how long it’s been, how much time has elapsed since the conversation with Travis—morphine is funny that way—but Kate knows exactly what she’s taking about.

“I don’t know, Ames,” she says, patting Amy’s hand. “You’ll just have to ask him when you see him.”

Amy stares at the stuffed pink bunny and its flat, black glass eyes staring back at her.

\---

It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate it. Of _course_ she appreciates being alive, once the morphine has cleared her system a little and she can think more linearly. Of _course_ she’d rather be alive than dead.

She just…doesn’t understand why. She’s not Travis—Mitchell has no real inclination or motivation to keep her alive.

So why did he do it?

The question gnaws at her, goes round and round her head with no answer in sight. It’s hard to contemplate motive when she can barely contemplate the way he thinks.

She’s a detective. She wants to solve this mystery.

But Kate can’t give her an answer, and Travis’s answer is completely wrong, and Mitchell doesn’t come visit her so she can ask.

\---

She finally gets her chance four days after returning to work. She’s hobbling through the parking garage, crutches thudding loudly on the concrete, and she sees a tall, slim figure moving through the shadowed gloom toward his car. It’s the first moment she’s seen him alone since she got back, the first chance she’s had to ask the question she’s been dying to find an answer for. She leaps on it.

“Mitchell!”

The demon goes still, like a statue, and it’s so eerie Amy pauses, feeling a frisson of unease roll down her spine.

But then he turns, cants one eyebrow inquiringly, and she takes a breath and bolsters her nerve. She’ll never get a better opportunity.

As fast as she can, she makes her way to where he’s standing.

“Detective,” Mitchell says coolly, eyeing her crutches and the way she isn’t putting any weight on her injured leg. “You’re not dead. And you didn’t lose your leg, either.”

A normal person would have said something like ‘It’s good to see you’re up and about.’ But then, Wes isn’t a normal person. He isn’t a person at all. Maybe this is his way of implying the same sentiment.

And maybe she’s totally off base here, she has no idea. That’s part of the reason why she wants to get an answer to her question.

“Why did you save me?”

The other eyebrow goes up. “You have to ask? You can’t just…” The demon waves a hand dismissively in her direction. “Enjoy the results?”

No. No, she can’t, because she can’t understand his motives and it’s driving her up the wall.

“I don’t like you,” she says, flat and blunt. Maybe if she starts speaking his language, she’ll finally get the answer she’s looking for.

Mitchell blinks, but something briefly crosses his face that looks like approval, or admiration. “I don’t particularly like you either,” he tells her. Then alarmed horror makes his eyes widen. “Have I done something to give you the notion that I do?”

“Well…” Amy shifts uncomfortably on her crutches. “No.”

“Oh. Good.” Mitchell gives a gusty sigh of relief. “I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong impression.”

Amy stares at him, at this conundrum of a creature she just cannot understand. “You don’t touch me.”

He goes still again, and it’s stranger this time, watching it close up, watching the way his face closes off and even the most minute twitches stops. It’s like seeing something turn into nothing more alive than a photograph, right before her very eyes.

He’s surprised, she thinks. Surprised she noticed, maybe, or surprised she’s mentioning it.

“You’ve never touched me,” she pushes, “not in all the time you’ve been here. And the one time you did, you asked permission first. But you don’t like me. And I don’t…I can’t understand it. I can’t understand _you_.”

Slowly, black pools in his eyes, covering the blue and leaving his gaze as opaque as an oil slick. She flinches—she can’t help it, though she recovers quickly enough and stands her ground and lifts her chin against that eternal gaze.

“Why don’t you touch me, Wes?”

And then Wes smiles, and it’s a smile she’s never seen a human being make before, one she’s not sure a human _could_ make. It’s thin and bitter and pained and so terrible she can’t imagine the kind of horrors that would cause someone to smile like that.

Softly, he says, “I too know what it is to be violated, Amy Laroche. To be hurt and broken and torn apart, and then remade into something different. I keep telling you—we’re more alike than you want to admit.”

Oh. Oh, holy _shit_.

In all the time she’s spent hating Wes for being a demon, she never once thought about how he ended up like that.

His smile changes a little, because a little less awful, and the black in his eyes leeches away, leaving a sad, cold blue behind. “So I won’t touch you. Not unless you tell me I can.”

She swallows hard, finds her voice in a throat that’s suddenly much too dry. “So if I’d said no, you’d have let me bleed out?”

He frowns thoughtfully, thinking about it. For an uncomfortably long time, really. Amy shifts awkwardly on her crutches and checks her watch a couple of times.

Eventually, he says, “No. I’d have just waited until you passed out and then tied the tourniquet on. You wouldn’t have had quite as much chance of making it through, but it still would have been fairly decent odds.” He shrugs. “Besides, Travis would have been upset if I’d let you die. I don’t like you all that much, but he’s fond of you for some reason.”

“And what, you’d do anything to make Travis happy?” she says sarcastically.

Wes ducks his head and smiles, and it—it softens his face, somehow, takes away all the harsh, inhuman angles and the coldness in his eyes. It makes him look gentler, more approachable.

It makes him look like a man in love.

Amy’s breath catches in her throat.

An instant later, it’s gone, and Wes is back to his typical cool, slightly imperious visage. “If there’s nothing else…?” he asks, running his hands down his jacket, smoothing the fabric. Dumbly, all Amy can do is shake her head.

He nods politely. “Well then. Goodnight, detective.”

And just like that, he turns and walks away, leaving Amy gaping at his back.

\---

She didn’t know demons could feel empathy.

More than that, she didn’t know demons could feel love, or anything close to it.

She just…she had no idea.

\---

Less than five minutes after Mitchell and Marks walk in, the captain calls them into his office and shuts the door. His door has been closing a lot more recently, ever since those two got paired up.

Kate props her hand on her chin and studies the door, where the captain can be seen furiously gesticulating through the window. “They did something stupid again,” she says, as bored and factual as if she were saying _The sky is blue_.

Amy snorts in agreement. “Did you see the grin on Mitchell’s face? They probably burned down a building. Maybe two.”

Kate shakes her head, a rueful smile curling her lips. “What a pair of idiots.” But there’s fond affection in her voice—the guys may be idiots, but they’re RHD’s idiots. That’s practically family.

Amy looks down at the file in front of her, voice casual. “That is very true. But they’re not so bad.”

“What’s this?” When she glances up, Kate is grinning. “Did I just hear a dash of warmth in your voice?”

“No.”

“I did!” Kate claps sarcastically, expression going limpid and patronizing. “My little Ames’s heart is starting to thaw, I’m so proud.”

“Oh, shut up.” Amy crumples a sticky note and throws it at her partner’s head, earning a bright laugh from her partner.

She still doesn’t like Travis all that much, and she _really_ doesn’t like Mitchell. He’s a demon. She doubts she’ll ever like him.

But maybe he’s not quite as bad as she first thought.

**Author's Note:**

> I love demon!Wes and Travis’s relationship, and I love looking at it from all different angles. I think that’s why I like outsider POV so much, because it’s a different take on the relationship—someone from the outside is not going to see the same thing Wes and Travis will, and they’re going to understand the nature of that relationship differently too.
> 
> Or maybe I just really love writing demon!Wes and want to come up with as many stories to write. Either or.


End file.
